


Immortals just want to have fun

by Jadesymb



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Background Relationships, Beat saber, Drabble, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Found Family, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:21:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesymb/pseuds/Jadesymb
Summary: Immortals need time to wind down.  Nile has a little addiction that she needs to scratch.  She should have known that the others would follow her down the rabbit hole.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 216





	1. Chapter 1

Andy had told Nile that they’d be here for at least a month, and the money from the last few jobs was burning a hole in Nile’s pocket. Every time she walked by the large, empty “gym,” she couldn’t help but think of the possibilities. After about a week, a familiar itch began to grow, and so she snuck out to get her fix.

It took a little time to find a store with one in stock, but a couple of hours later, she was home with her purchase. Everyone else seemed to be gone, and so she escaped to the large, open gym area. As soon as everything was set up and charged, she eagerly slipped the headset over her eyes and set up her guardian. Rather quickly, Nile found herself completely immersed and incredibly happy. She was a little surprised at how easily the moves came to her. She was even more shocked when she realized that all that training with the team really had translated into her being better at this than she had ever dreamed possible. Soon she was totally lost into the flow, the music blaring, her body honed beyond even her military training. She honestly wasn’t sure she’d ever felt happier.

She was deep into the groove, Unlimited Power blaring, her body moving fluidly, precisely, when she felt something on her shoulder. She was blind to the touch, but she spun quickly, attacking unseeingly. She recognized the grunt as both she and the man rolled to the ground. Nile popped up reflexively, pulling the goggles off of her head.

“Booker! What the hell! Don’t do that!” Nile yelled, noticing she was a little breathless and coated in sweat.

“I am sorry, ma chérie, but we were wondering what you were up to. You had disappeared so early, and then we returned to find you involved in some sort of weird dance.,” Booker replied from where he was still sitting on the ground.  
Nile finally looked around the room and realized the rest of her found family was also in the large workout area, all looking at her in mild puzzlement. 

“What were you doing, and what is that?” Nicky asked as he gestured at the headset in her hand.

“This?” Nile held it up so they could see it. “It’s just an Oculus. I had one a couple of years back, before all of this. I loved to play Beat Saber. I figured since we were going to be here a while, I might as well?”

“And how do you play this game?” Nicky took the headset from her, eyeing it skeptically.

“So the headset is a VR headset, it can sense where your hands are, and you use it to interact with the virtual world it shows you. My favorite is Beat Saber, but there are a ton of other games and uses for it. Let me show you.”


	2. Nicky and Joe

“Nicoló, no, please, come back to bed.” Joe rubbed tiredly at his eyes as he pleaded with Nicky. Nicky simply offered Joe a small smile and a brief shake of his head before slipping out the door to their room. Joe flopped back onto the bed, sighing loudly. He laid there for a bit, weighing his options. He could follow Nicky and see what the trouble was, but he also was pretty sure he already knew. And if it was what he thought, he wasn’t going to be much help anyway. Joe nestled back into the blankets, but without the warmth of Nicky in his bed, sleep evaded him. After a half-hour or so, he gave up and padded down the hall to where he expected to find the light of his life.

He cautiously pushed open the door, and sure enough, there was Nicky, hands raised, feet in a fighting stance, and his face obscured by the damnable Oculus that Nile had brought into their lives earlier that day. Nicky began moving suddenly, and the faint beat of the music drifted to Joe. He watched for a moment before Nicky grunted in frustration, and then started the strange dance again. Whatever level he was on must not have been going well.

“My heart, if you are not going to return to bed, at least tell me what is the problem that vexes you.,” Joe asked loudly, hopefully over the sound of the game. It took Nicky a few minutes to get the game paused and the visor lifted above his eyes.  
“There are multiple challenges for me. Firstly, it is hard to concentrate on the game because it blocks out the rest of the world, and I get distracted attempting to listen to the room while also hitting the blocks. The other reason is that no matter how I hold my hands, wielding the virtual swords feels unnatural,” Nicky groused at Joe.

“Ah! Well, the first solution is simple. I shall remain in the room with you, and you will know that you are safe! Easily fixed. And for the other problem…..” Joe trailed off as he wandered over to the weapons rack at the back of the room. He selected two blades, smaller than what Nicky usually fought with, but familiar all the same. “Try playing while holding these. Nile did say that the older version of this game required the player to hold the controllers in their hands. I think this will feel more correct.”  
Nicky nodded. He pulled the headset back over his eyes and held out his hands to Joe. Joe promptly placed the weapons into Nicky’s hands and stepped back to the corner of the gym.  
“I’m out of the way now, my heart. I will watch over you.”

Nicky fiddled for a minute before the faint sounds of Beat Saber filtered over to where Joe was sitting. Nicky began moving much more fluidly than before, the weight of the knives and the security of Joe at his back seeming to free him from his earlier woes. Joe pulled down a sketchpad and pencils and watched as a wicked grin slowly grew on Nicky’s face.


	3. Nile and Booker

“Once we get this finished, I can then share what I’m seeing on the screen with everyone in the room. That way you can tell what I’m playing , ” Nile said as Booker worked on setting up the screen. Nile was connecting up the projector to a small box that would relay the game information around. 

“All the easier to place bets about the game, ma chérie , ” Booker snickered.

“Well, that too. I mean, Andy **_lying_** about how the game was going just to win the bet did influence my decision , ” Nile agreed  as  she powered everything up, grabbed her Oculus, and completed the setup .  “There now Seb, can you see the menu projected on the screen? Is it working?”

Instead of answering, Booker simply stepped up to her and pulled the VR headset off of her head. He leaned in and kissed her soundly before slipping it over his own head. 

“Hey you brat! I was going to play!” Nile said laughing as she wiggled out of Booker’s grasp.

“Nope, now it’s my turn. Show me how to select this sword beating game that Nicky and you love so much.” 

Nile simply shook her head and began walking her lover through how to navigate the menus.


	4. Andy and Quynh

Andy was up late, because Quynh had not been sleeping recently. Tonight, Quynh had finally managed to find the perfect combination of light, sound, and temperature, and dozed off. When Andy had peaked into their room and saw her sleeping so soundly, she was loath to risk waking her by crawling into bed with her, no matter how welcome she might be. So instead she was haunting the halls, debating a nap on the couch, when she heard something from the gym. She crept quietly to the gym and listened.

“You are always so vigorous! Now you are telling me the secret is to move only a little bit?” Booker sounded mildly perturbed.

“I prefer it to be vigorous! I do it for the exercise and the excitement! And to pretend I’m a Jedi! You can’t do that with tiny little hand movements. I’m not training to be the best at Beat Saber in the world. I’m just saying that the players who score the highest move the least,” Nile patiently explained.

“But what about winning! You taught me to play all wrong!” Booker bemoaned.

“You silly man. Come over here and I’ll show you all about how much more fun vigorous movements are,” Nile replied cheekily.

Andy decided not to hang outside the room any longer, and to head away from Nile and Booker before she ended up seeing more than they would be comfortable with. Both Nile and Booker were still in possession of a weird little thing they called modesty. She headed back to the other side of the house, and crept silently back to Quynh’s room. She peered into the room and met Quynh’s eyes.

“Andromache, come to bed, I’m cold.” Andy couldn’t help but smile in response. In her long life, for most of it, pain was a thing to be ignored. Everything still hurt, but physical pain could be shaken off, because it only lasted for a few short moments. The emotional pain of losing Quynh however, had endured beyond anything she could have dreamed. She didn’t know it was possible to hurt that much, and she had thought the pain was never ending. To have finally found her heart again after missing it for so long, it was a miracle. 

Andy climbed into bed and let Quynh roll over on top of her. Quynh still did not like to have any weight placed over the top of her, not after so many centuries under the water. The best way to ensure her comfort was to let Quynh come to her and decide how best to arrange herself. 

Once they’d settled, Andy whispered, “So, I think I know how to win at Nile’s sword game. We’ll have to try it tomorrow.” 

“I have no doubt.” And Andy could hear the smile in Quynh’s reply.


	5. Chapter 5

Nile had realized it when she exposed the other immortals to Beat Saber, but she had made a colossal mistake with her tiny family. A week after she’d set up the screen for viewing, she came home to Nicky, Booker, and Quynh, all with their own VR headsets. They had set up a screen that projected all three games so that Andy and Joe could see just how good or bad everyone was doing. Andy and Joe were heckling everyone, calling out predictions and bets about who would become the reigning champion of Beatsaber.

Nile watched in horror as Nicky managed to complete a level on the hardest setting without missing a single block. She finally flopped down next Andy and hollered out, “ONE HUNDRED on NICKY!”

**Author's Note:**

> I was playing Beat Saber the other day and I had this sudden impression that Nicky would become super addicted to this game, and wouldn't stop till he'd become the best player on the planet. So I wrote a crack fic.  
> Comments/Kudos are love!


End file.
